"With all due respect for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the president of the country that is the first to support us morally, we are ready to provide humanitarian corridors for encircled Ukrainian troops on condition that they surrender heavy weapons and ammunition so that the weaponry and ammunition would not be used against us," he said.

The Kremlin press service said earlier on Friday that Putin in his address to militia of Novorossia (the Donetsk and Luhansk republics) urged to let troops out of the encirclement to prevent unneeded casualties. The president said many servicemen participated in the Kiev-organized military operation in the southeast not on their own free will but obeying the order. He called on Kiev authorities to immediately stop fighting and sit at the negotiating table with Donbass representatives. The president pledged that Russia would continue providing humanitarian aid for southeastern Ukrainian regions.

The presidential address reads as follows: "I am calling on militia forces to open a humanitarian corridor for encircled Ukrainian servicemen in order to avoid senseless casualties, enable them to get out of the area of combat operations unimpededly and reunite with their families; bring them back to their mothers, wives, and children, and urgently to give medical aid to those wounded in the military operation".

Russia will continue to render humanitarian aid to the population of Donbass, says an address, issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to the militias of Ukraine's south-east. President stated, "The Russian side is ready and will continue to provide humanitarian aid for the population of Donbass who suffer from a humanitarian disaster".

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry sent a convoy of 262 trucks with relief supplies for residents of the war-torn southeast of Ukraine on August 12. The cargo contains some 2,000 metric tons of humanitarian aid, including food (grain, sugar, baby food), medications, sleeping bags and portable power generators.

Troops loyal to Kiev and local militias in the southeastern Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions are involved in fierce clashes as the Ukrainian armed forces are conducting a military operation to regain control over the breakaway territories, which on May 11 proclaimed their independence at local referendums and now call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics.

During the military operation, conducted since mid-April, Kiev has used armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in it. Many buildings have been destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee Ukraine’s embattled southeast.